White River Junction — The Selectboard last week sidestepped a suggestion from the town’s attorneys that it remove such phrases as “white privilege,” “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” from a document providing advice about racial sensitivity training for town and school officials, saying it was important to show a strong commitment to addressing the concepts.

“One of the most important things in affecting real change is to get people out of their comfort zone,” Selectboard member Jameson Davis said after Wednesday night’s meeting. “You don’t want to panic people, but you don’t experience growth until you get out of your comfort zone, and using these strong terms will help people discuss these issues and consider these issues, which are real.”

The document, furnished by the ad hoc Hartford Committee on Racial Inequality before it disbanded in March, includes a charge for the newly formed Hartford Committee on Racial Equality and Inclusion, a permanent standing committee that held its inaugural meeting on Aug. 13. Davis and Selectboard Chairman Simon Dennis double as members of the racial equality panel, which wanted to keep the phrases in the document.

Language related to cultural sensitivity training and to the charge for the new committee included the terms, but lawyers with the Burlington-based law firm Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer recommended taking out some of the phrases in the four-page document, which still is subject to the approval of the School Board.

The original document stated in section two that School Board and Selectboard training should “cover concepts including white privilege, systemic racism and white supremacy” and charged the racial equality committee, in part, with “increasing cultural sensitivity by cultivating greater understanding of concepts such as implicit bias, white supremacy and institutional racism.”

In both sections, the law firm had recommended replacing those phrases with “diversity, inclusion and equity.”

Hartford Town Manager Leo Pullar explained the reasoning behind the law firm’s edits during Wednesday’s meeting.

“This is a public document, and not everyone who reads that is going to understand the nuances of those words. It may cause violent reaction in some folks and it may cause some folks to be litigious, whether they have a leg to stand on or not. (The firm) thought, ‘The idea is great, but it’s too strong, too much risk,’ ” Pullar said.

Later in the meeting, Selectboard member Alan Johnson expressed hesitation about including the term “white privilege.”

“I’m concerned with ‘white privilege’ being added in because that one I feel like is much more in the category of raising ire for people that don’t understand it,” Johnson said. “You can see the word ‘white supremacy’ and say, ‘Oh, they’re talking about white supremacists. They’re talking about the Nazi marches and stuff.’ But if you say ‘white privilege,’ anyone who’s white is going to know that means to them. And what does that mean? (White people could think), ‘What do you mean I’m privileged?’ ”

But during the deliberations, Davis, who is African-American, said that sometimes, strong language is appropriate even when risk is involved.

“There are sections of this document where we have to be blatant with the things we are trying to fight against, and I think that these strong words need to be included in the document,” said Davis, a Quechee resident who is a Vermont Law School student. “I do understand the risk that was spoken about and I am breaking the rule that I learned in legislation class. We are taught to be as broad as we can to make it easy on counsel representing us. I feel that sometimes needs to be overridden by the importance of the words that we use, to let people know how strongly we feel.”

The Selectboard ultimately agreed to insert the law firm’s recommended phrases of “diversion, inclusion and equity” in section two, but added to a list of bullet points within the section stating that future School Board and Selectboard training may explore “concepts of white privilege, systemic racism and white supremacy.”

Citing consistency throughout the document, the Selectboard decided to tag those same six phrases to the end of a passage in the charge section, along with the phrase “implicit bias.” That section now asks the committee to support Hartford personnel and the Hartford School Board, in part, by “cultivating greater understanding of the concepts of diversity, inclusion, equity, implicit bias, white privilege, white supremacy and implicit racism.” The phrase “institutional racism” was not part of the new language.

Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.